Bloom's Mortal Enemy
by alanabloom
Summary: "Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy." Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris. Three part fic, set during and after Will's murder trial. Will/Alana.
1. Grown Up Orphans

**Important Note: **Okay. So. This is a series I'm doing made up of three oneshots, taking place during and after Will's trial, and based loosely around the Red Dragon line quoted below. I debated posting these as seperate oneshots, since they could technically function on their own, but they follow each other narratively and have similar themes, plus several reviewers have mentioned wanting me to do a multichapter.

This first chapter especially is more Alana-centric, dealing with her backstory along with the present day narrative of Will's trial, but no worries, the next two will be much more overtly Will/Alana. Chapter title comes from "Name" by Goo Goo Dolls

"_Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy_."

- Red Dragon, chapter seventeen

Chapter One: Grown Up Orphans

Aaron Bloom is worried about his sister.

He calls Alana twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, always around the same time. It's an essential part of his routine. They all have different methods of dealing with Alana, and the guilt she provokes in them. Ben chose distance: he texts his sister on her birthday and exchanges small talk at Christmas, but other than that, their relationship is nonexistent. Max favors denial, playing the part of a normal brother in a normal family and avoiding any mention, no matter how innocuous, of the past.

And Aaron, well. Aaron overcompensates. He is a worrying, overprotective big brother, about twenty years too late.

For the last several months, at least, she's given him plenty of reason to worry. She talks to him about Will Graham, and Will Graham's upcoming trial, and Will's Graham's dogs. Alana would never say it, of course, but Aaron can hear the exhaustion, the desperation, and the fear that laces her voice, increasingly pronounced every phone call.

She has run out of other topics. Aaron reads between the lines and draws several conclusions: Alana's working herself ragged preparing for this trial; she's spending a disturbing amount of time visiting Will at the prison; she's terrified he's going to be found guilty.

And she's quite possibly in love with the guy.

"...just so difficult to find a precedent," Alana's saying now. Aaron thinks idly that he should have kept track of how many times she's said that phrase during their calls over the past two months. "It's the empathy thing. It's too rare. Especially considering his job..." There's a disconnect to her voice. Lately, Aaron feels like Alana isn't so much talking _to_ him, but _at_ him. Like she just needs to say her thoughts out loud, have someone else absorb it, no matter who that someone is. "Because _obviously_ not everyone with encephalitis commits murder during their dissociative states, but most of them don't spend their working lives being forced to assume the mindset of serial killers."

"Right," Aaron says mechanically. He's heard this line of argument before.

"It's just hard to get people to wrap their minds around how _literal_ that is for Will."

"You'll make 'em understand," he tells her reassuringly. "You explained it to _me_."

"He can't stay in that place," she mutters absently, like she didn't even hear Aaron. "It's breaking him already...so it's not just about proving that Will didn't know what he was doing, that he couldn't help it, but that it won't happen again. That's the only way they'll let him come home."

Something about her phrasing worries him, even as Aaron gives the automatic assurance, "The brain scans should do that, though, yeah?" He's quiet for a moment, debating how to broach the topic. "Al...if they do let him go home, free and clear...then what happens?"

"What do you mean?" Her tone's impatient.

He tries to be delicate. "Just...you visit him a lot, and you two have the whole...I'm just curious, if there's some sort of...expectation, or understanding about, you know. When he gets out."

There's a pause, and when she speaks again, Alana sounds truly engaged in the conversation for the first time. The barest hint of defensiveness in her voice, she says, "What exactly are you asking here?"

And before he can think it through, Aaron blurts out, "Look, Al, I need you to tell me you're not becoming one of those women who think they're in love with serial killers, okay?" He grimaces before he even finishes talking, and on the other end of the phone, his sister goes dangerously silent.

It takes a few moments before Alana responds. Her voice is quiet, but vibrating with barely contained anger. "You want to be really careful what you say right now, Aaron-"

"Al-"

"-because you don't know anything about him."

"I do, though! I do because you've told me. Hell, I could probably give your testimony at this point-"

"Didn't realize I've been boring you," she snaps icily.

"You're _not_, Al. I want to hear about it, really, I just...I'm worried about you."

"_I_ don't need worrying about."

"Are you sure?" Aaron pauses, attempting to choose his words more carefully this time. "Look, I get it. I get that you're the guy's friend, and I get that he didn't know what he was doing. You _should_ help him, it's great that you are. But...Al, it's obvious you have feelings for the guy. Is that really a good bet for a relationship?"

"I can make that judgement for myself, thanks," Alana replies. "I'm a _psychiatrist_, Aaron. If something to do with pre-algebra or geometry arises, maybe I'll be interested in your consultation."

"Real nice," he mutters, rolling his eyes. "I just thought you of all people would want to avoid something like that. Just think about Mom-"

"_Hey_," her voice, sharp and powerful, slams against his argument. "Do you _really_ want to go there? You want to pretend to know _anything_ about that?"

Everything freezes. They both go silent for a long, loaded moment, each equally shocked by Alana's rushed, angry words. Over twenty years, and the perpetually unspoken has finally been said out loud.

"I...I didn't mean..." Alana's stammering, flustered; she hadn't meant to say that, and now she's struggling for recovery, while still maintaining her defenses. "I've never blamed you. Any of you guys. You _know_ I don't. But, just...you can't suddenly act like you know more about it than I do. That's bullshit, and you know it."

Aaron doesn't say anything, still too shocked to form a reply. They stay on the phone for several long moments, neither speaking, until finally Alana sighs sharply and says, "I gotta go, okay?"

There's a click, and then she's gone.

~(W*A)~

Three minutes after Alana hangs up on him, Aaron calls Ben.

He often does this, after his phone calls with their sister. As carefully as he avoids her, Alana would be shocked to hear the level of interest Ben has in her life.

"I...think I just had a fight with Al," Aaron says, by way of greeting.

"What?" Ben sounds genuinely shocked. "You guys don't fight."

"Apparently we do now."

"Hold on..." Aaron can hear Ben's voice, muffled, as he speaks to someone else, presumably his wife, then the shuffling of movement before he gets back on the phone. "Back. What'd you fight about? The Will guy?"

"Started out that way..."

"And ended up...?"

Still sounding like he can't quite believe it, Aaron says, "Ended up being about...Mom."

"What? Shit."

"I think...Alana finally said it."

Aaron gives Ben a quick recap of the conversation, and when he's finished, his younger brother lets out a low whistle.

"Damn."

"I know."

A beat passes, then Ben says, "In a way it's...kind of a relief."

Aaron laughs once, humorlessly. "How's that?"

"All this time, she never mentioned it. Never acted resentful. We've spent so long wondering if she even realizes how bad we screwed her over...and now we know."

Aaron processes that for a moment, then says, only half joking, "Does that mean you're going to talk to her now?"

Ben's tone darkens immediately. "Shut up."

"I don't get you."

"No, you don't. You forget I've got a whole extra year of guilt on you. I know you think college isn't a good enough excuse, either, but it's a hell of a lot better than _I just couldn't be bothered_."

Aaron knows better than to argue that point, so he just says, "Doesn't seem to bother Max."

Ben scoffs at the mention of his twin. "Nothing bothers Max. He came through town last week to see a client, so we had dinner. I was telling him about this whole trial thing, said you were worried about her. He just said, 'Oh, she'll be fine. Isn't it, like, her job?'"

Aaron groans out loud at that. "Jesus."

"Yeah. It's like he thinks if anything goes badly for her, even if it's totally unrelated, it'll somehow be our fault. So he insists she's perfect and her life is perfect and everything's fine."

"Typical."

They're quiet for a bit, each contemplating their family, until Ben asks, "So what are you gonna do?"

Exhaling heavily, Aaron answers, "I don't know. I guess I'll call her Wednesday as usual and hope she answers." He pauses, then adds, "And I won't mention Will again. Guess she's kinda right...don't have much right to be worrying about her now."

~(W*A)~

_The first eight years of Alana Bloom's life were relatively normal and unsullied. She was the only girl in her family, as well as the youngest by a wide margin...a "happy surprise" late in a solid marriage. Her brothers teased her, of course, and it often felt like they lived in a world completely separate from her own, but for the most part Alana was happy with her world, and her life._

_Then her oldest brother, Jamie, died and everything about her family began to slowly crumble away._

_He was eighteen, in his last summer at home before going to college. Alana was eight. Aaron was sixteen. Max and Ben were fifteen._

_Their mother shut down completely, withdrawing into herself, disengaging from the world around her. Their dad stayed five months: long enough to see the kids back to school and get his wife into therapy, and then one day he left for work and never came back. Whether it was fueled by grief, or frustration with grief's stench in his home, was impossible to say._

_But Aaron had a golden ticket in the form of his driver's license and car. He and his brothers threw themselves into sports and social lives, going to the high school in the morning and often not returning until late in the evening, avoiding the house that reeked of a loss and the woman who barely resembled their mother._

_But at eight years old, Alana didn't have that luxury. She rode the bus home from her elementary school every day, and more often than not, she was alone in the house with her mother...her mother who changed month to month based on whatever cocktail of drugs her therapist was testing._

_It's over a year after Jamie died, seven months or so after their dad left. That's how long it takes Aaron to figure it out, and even then he gets lucky. It isn't shrewd observation, or brotherly instinct. He simply happens to be spending a rare hour in the house, getting ready for a date, when the phone rings, and the next thing he knows his little sister's voice is coming over the line, informing him she needed to be picked up._

_"Where are you?" Aaron asks, confused. He'd only gotten home half an hour ago, and hadn't even realized Alana isn't in the house._

_"I'm at Sarah's for a sleepover, but I'm not staying anymore."_

_He tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder, distracted, as he buttons his shirt. "How come? D'you get scared or something?"_

_"_No_," she insists, with all the indignity of a nine year old. "But I can't stay. Her mom doesn't want me to."_

_Aaron groans. "Why, what'd you do?"_

_"_Nothing_. Can you just come? Or tell Mom to?"_

_Their mother is asleep on the couch in the living room. She's been sleeping a lot lately, drowsiness an apparent side effect of the current combination of drugs. Either that, or it just isn't alleviating the depressive state. Sighing, Aaron asks, "You sure you can't stay?"_

_"Positive."_

_"Where's the house?"_

_Ten minutes later, he pulls up in front of the curb at a suburban split level a few neighborhoods away from theirs. Alana's sitting alone on the porch steps, hugging her knees, her backpack beside her. She practically runs to the car and hurls herself inside when Aaron stops._

_Not moving right away, Aaron turns to look at his sister. "What the hell happened?"_

_"Nothing, just go."_

_"_Something_ happened," he insists._

_"Sarah's mom said she can't play with me anymore."_

_"But _why_?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"You gotta know."_

_"I _don't_, okay, she just said it." Alana's chewing on her lower lip, glaring straight ahead with a determinedly angry expression that means she's trying not to cry._

_Aaron stares at her for a moment. Her dark hair's pulled into a clumsy braid that isn't quite holding, and he realizes she must have had to figure out how to do that herself._

_Something about this realization pisses him off. He throws the car in park and tugs the keys out, opening his door. "Wait here."_

_Alana's eyes go huge. "Aaron, don't."_

_But he's already striding down the sidewalk, and soon knocking purposefully on the door._

_It doesn't take long before a woman opens it, and something about the reality of confronting an adult immediately throws off Aaron's bravado. "Um. Hi. I'm Alana's brother."_

_"Oh." The woman sighs, casting her eyes over Aaron's shoulder toward the car. "Thank you for coming...I told Alana she didn't need to go home, but she was insistent."_

_"Did, uh. Did something happen?" It occurrs to Aaron that this is a parent talk. Their mother should be doing this._

_"Well, she was perfectly well behaved all afternoon. But after what Sarah just informed me, I'm afraid I had to tell both girls this would be their last sleepover. And that Sarah probably shouldn't spend time with Alana in the future."_

_Aaron feels an instantaneous rush of distaste. He knows this mother; every kid knows this mother: the haughty one who thinks their precious child is inherently better than everyone else, and thus must be kept away from riffraff. "And what did Sarah inform you?," he asks tersely._

_"She said Alana gets into fights quite frequently. I'm sorry, but that's not the sort of influence my daughter needs."_

_Aaron stares at the woman incredulously. "_Fights_? She's never been in a fight in her life."_

_"Sarah was quite insistent..."_

_Over her mother's shoulder, Aaron spots a wispy little blonde girl hovering in the back of the foyer. Following his gaze, the woman turns and tells her daughter, "Sarah, honey, go back upstairs."_

_"Have you ever seen Alana get in a fight?" Aaron asks the little girl loudly, earning him a glare from her mom._

_"No..." Sarah glances nervously back and forth between Aaron and her mother. "Alana told me about them. Just now."_

_Aaron rolls his eyes, giving the woman a triumphant look. "She was probably just messing around. Al doesn't fight."_

_"She wasn't lying," Sarah protests. "We were changing into our pajamas and I saw how bruised up she is. That's when she told me."_

_"What?" Aaron stands stone still for a moment, frozen in his incomprehension, and then, without another word to Sarah or her mom, he turns on his heel and jogs back to the car._

_"What did you _say_ to them?" Alana demands as soon as he's back in the car._

_Aaron looks at her, scrutinizing. It's July, and she's wearing long sleeves. Only now does that strike him as odd. In a single, quick motion, he reaches over and jerks up her shirt sleeve, eliciting a cry of protest._

_"Hey, _quit_ it."_

_Alana twists away, but too late; he's already seen a few scattered bruises, and one long, even row of welts on her forearm._

_His stomach in knots, Aaron reaches for her again. Alana jerks away, pressing herself against the passenger side door, fisting her shirt in her hands._

_"Stop it, Aaron, get _offa_ me!"_

_But he's stronger than her, and easily manages to lift up the back of her shirt. There's a huge, ugly green and purple bruise at the base of her back, and a smattering of smaller contusions, at various stages of fading._

_Alana slaps ineffectually at his arm before pulling her shirt back down, face red and furious._

_"What the hell happened to you?" Aaron demands, his voice oddly strangled. "_Have_ you been fighting?" Alana turns away from him, staring out the passenger window. "Did another kid do this to you?" No answer; Aaron swallows hard, then finally asks it, the terrifying suspicion that coiled around his spine the second Sarah mentioned the bruises. "Did _Mom_ do this to you?"_

_Still no answer for a moment, but eventually Alana turns to look at him. "It's only when it gets bad."_

_Just like that, Aaron gets the same sinking feeling he had when his dad told him Jamie had been in a car accident: the sudden, paralyzing certainty that nothing in his life will ever be the same. In a hoarse voice, he echoes, "When it gets bad?"_

_"She gets confused," Alana informs him calmly, eyes wide and solemn. "She thinks Jamie's still here, and she gets mad when I don't see him. Or when I can't find him for her. Sometimes I pretend, but it doesn't always work. And sometimes she just gets mad for no reason." Aaron can only gape at her, unable to think of anything to say. So Alana continues, as though explaining something to a child, "She's on a _lot_ of medication. The doctor keeps adjusting until they figure out what works. But it can make her act not like herself. She's sorry, though. She can't help it."_

_It feels like Aaron's chest is caving in. He knows that Alana's only parroting what she'd been hearing, presumably from their mother, but still, in that moment, his baby sister sounds so, so old._

~(W*A)~

Alana doesn't answer when Aaron calls Wednesday. Or the Sunday after that. Or the following Wednesday. Or one more Sunday.

Then, to his surprise, he gets a phone call from her on Tuesday night, unscheduled.

Her voice is brusque and unfriendly, and she's clearly not in the mood for catch up. "Hey, listen, I need a favor."

"Sure," he responds eagerly. Unaccustomed to fighting with her, Aaron has no precedence with how to make things right.

"You're still on break, right?"

"Yeah. Through August." He teaches math and coaches baseball at a local high school. Since an abrupt and bitter divorce - and subsequent move - three years ago, the summer vacations everyone envies have become one long stretch of boredom.

"Okay, good. So, Will's trial's next week. I need you to come." Alana sighs, as if hearing how demanding she sounds. Adjusting her tone, she adds, "Please. If you can. I know it's a drive, so you can stay at my place."

"Of course, yeah." Aaron doesn't even pause to think about it. "I'll totally be there for you. I know it'll be stressful-"

"Look, it's nothing like that," Alana tells him shortly. "I'm one of the last witnesses the defense is calling, so I'll be sequestered most of the trial. I need somebody to sit in the gallery every day and tell me how it's going."

"That I can do," he assures her.

"Great." Then, as an afterthought, she adds, "Thank you."

"Always." Aaron pauses, then hesitantly begins, "Al, listen. I'm sorry about-"

"Forget it," she cuts him off, voice suddenly weary. "It's okay. Just...don't talk to me about Will, alright?"

He smirks a little. "That'll kinda make it hard for me to give you daily trial reports."

To his relief, he can hear a hint of a smile, or at least an eyeroll, in her voice when she replies, "_Okay_, smartass, except for then."

"Got it."

~(W*A)~

_"No way. There's no way."_

_"You really think she'd lie about something like that?"_

_"She isn't lying," Aaron firmly puts the twins' argument to rest. "You should see her back it's, like...really bad." Ben jerks to his feet, a fire in his eyes, but Aaron tugs him back down. "She won't show you. Didn't even want me to look."_

_"We gotta tell somebody."_

_Max shoots his twin a bug eyed look. "You want to send Mom to jail?"_

_"She's _beating_ our little sister!" Ben retorts._

_Max gives Aaron an uncertain look. "Is it really that serious?"_

_"I...I don't know." Aaron shifts slightly, feeling far too young and confused to be in the position of authority. He wonders fleetingly what Jamie would do. "I think it might be. But...I don't think she should go to jail. She needs help. She doesn't know what she's doing, she fucking thinks Jamie's still alive..."_

_"Well, yeah, we knew that..."_

_"She _talks_ to him sometimes."_

_"She stopped for a few months, remember-"_

_"-depends on the medication."_

_"Yeah, that's what Alana said," Aaron says grimly. His brothers register that statement, and they all fall silent. Eventually, Aaron groans, raking his hands through his hair. "Maybe we should try to find Dad."_

_Max's face turns stony. "Fuck Dad. Like he'd care."_

_"How would we even find him, anyway?" Ben adds, looking like he half hopes Aaron has a suggestion._

_"Got me."_

_Ben frowns, expression contemplative. "Look. I think we have to tell someone. Mom's in therapy and it's obviously not working. She needs more help than she thinks. We don't know enough to handle that."_

_Max shakes his head. "Except if you tell someone, what do you think happens tous?"_

_Ben glances at his twin, not getting it. But Aaron's face tightens in immediate understanding._

_Their grandparents are all dead, save for a paternal grandfather in a nursing home somewhere in Florida. Their mother is an only child. They have no family around._

_"I'm not eighteen for another ten months," Aaron says. "They'd send us all to foster homes."_

_Max turns to Ben with an appealing look. "Yeah, and we'd probably get split up...at least from Alana. More places want little kids than teenage guys. So we'd just be sending her off to maybe get slapped around by someone who isn'trelated to her."_

_Ben glances at Aaron expectantly, not looking convinced. "So...what do we do?"_

_"We...watch her," Aaron says firmly after a moment. "We stick around the house more...don't leave Al alone with Mom. Ever. And maybe...I can talk to her therapist. Make sure he knows that it's serious. That's she's delusional, talking to Jamie and all that."_

_"Just _don't_ mention the hitting."_

_"No. None of us can mention that."_

~(W*A)~

"So these are all his?"

"I suppose a few extra could have wandered in by now. Hard to keep track," Alana deadpans blithely. Aaron gives her a startled look, and she smirks at him. "No, they're all his. Will likes to take in strays."

Aaron refrains from commenting on that one, instead bending down and scratching one of the smaller pups behind the ears. "Nice of you to watch them," he says, tone carefully neutral, but even that provoke her defenses.

"Don't start," Alana warns.

Aaron glances up at her. It's been a couple months since he's seen his sister, and she looks older. She's lost weight, and she seems edgy and panicked, but he hopes that's simply because it's the night before the trial.

She catches him looking at her, and seems to guess what he's thinking, because the warning look only intensifies. Aaron lifts his hands in silent surrender.

Half of Alana's living room has been taken over by trial preparation. Aaron sits in the one chair not stacked with books or files and reads a novel while Alana works, sitting on the floor beside her coffee table, pouring over stacks of papers with an intense, laser focus.

Around eleven, Aaron slows his reading, watching Alana expectantly, assuming she'll wrap up soon. But she shows no signs of breaking concentration, and the more Aaron observes the more chaotic her energy seems.

It's after midnight when he ventures, "Uh. Al?"

Her head snaps up, face twisted into an instinctive look of annoyance at being interrupted. "Yeah?"

"I might turn in."

"Sure. The guest room's all made up for you." She's already turning back to her work.

He stands up and walks over to her, lightly nudging his foot against her leg. "Hey." She looks up. "Think you might be wrapping up soon? Trial's pretty early tomorrow."

"I'll be fine."

"Do you even have to go?" he asks. "I mean, no way you get called for at least a few days, right? So you'll just be sitting in some room."

Alana scowls at him. "I'm going."

After a moment, as gently as possible, Aaron says, "Al, he won't even know you're there-"

Alana gives him an irritated look. "Fuck, Aaron, are you going to be like this the whole time?"

"I'm just-"

"I need you to do one simple thing, okay? Sit in the courtroom, pay attention, and tell me how it's going. That's it. I can do without the running commentary."

"Fine." He hovers over her for another moment, then nudges his foot against her knee again. "Goodnight."

He's halfway to the stairs when her voice stops him. "Aaron." He turns. There's something determined in Alana's face, and when she speaks, it's clear she's been needing to say this since their disastrous phone call a few weeks ago. "Mom was bipolar. With delusional episodes. You know that, right?"

It feels so strange to be talking about this. Aaron nods jerkily. "Yeah. I know."

"With Will...it's completely different. It's a physical thing...his brain was swollen." Aaron doesn't mention that by now he can probably recite the symptoms of encephalitis in his sleep. "And it's not anymore. Period. That's it."

"Okay. I know."

~(W*A)~

_It's easy for awhile._

_For the rest of the summer, they look out for their sister. They take Alana to the town pool, to play dates with her friends, to movies and minigolf._

_And when school starts back - Aaron in his senior year, the twins their junior - they coordinate their after school schedules. They make sure someone's home at all times. Aaron acts like a parent, signing Alana up for art classes and a soccer team. He speaks to his mother's therapist, and after a few months she finds something that resembles stability. She stops talking to Jamie, stops cleaning the house with manic obsession, stops sleeping so much. She's grounded, if a little dulled, like something's extinguished behind her eyes._

_Normality returns. And they become complacent._

_After six months of that, it's easy to let go of the urgency. Baseball season starts up, and Aaron, the school's star pitcher, has to secure a scholarship. Ben makes the move to varsity, too. Max gets a girlfriend and starts spending all his time with her._

_In other words, their lives start moving again, with the typical teenage momentum._

_So they miss things. Like the piles of packages that begin arriving to the house from their mother's online shopping sprees. Or how frequently the living room furniture gets rearranged. Or that Alana quits soccer after a few games in a row that no one remembered to take her to._

_And it's February, and cold, so there's nothing unusual about her long sleeves._

_It's not until April, when Aaron comes home to find his mother singing to herself and frosting a cake for Jamie's twentieth birthday, that he realizes she's gone off her meds. That night, he comes up behind Alana when she's brushing her teeth in the bathroom and makes out several long, finger length red marks against the back of her neck._

_He has a full scholarship to play baseball at a division one school. In May, when his father calls, the first time they've heard from him since he left, to tell Aaron he'll make arrangements for his tuition, it is with poisonous pleasure that Aaron can say he doesn't need him. And the rage that wells up in him at the sound of his father's voice, his utter lack of apology, makes it impossible for Aaron to ask this man to come home._

_That summer, his last summer, Aaron lets Alana become his shadow. He lavishes her with attention. Every day they go to the pool, or the movies, or the park. He lets Max and Ben have their summer all to themselves, as his mother once again cycles through cocktails of pills, and he never admits even to himself that he is only able to be so selfless because there is an end in sight._

_He moves into his dorm room in August, a step his older brother never got to take. He tells Max and Ben to take care of Alana._

_And he hates himself for the relief he feels when he watches his family drive away._

~(W*A)~

He isn't sure when - or if - Alana went to bed the previous night, but in any case she's up early, ushering him out of the house to get to court.

So he's early, and in spite of the relatively high profile of this trial, Aaron gets a decent seat just behind the defense table. He sits and watches as the gallery fills up with reporters.

There's a hum of activity when a side door opens, and Aaron looks over and gets his first glimpse of Will Graham.

He's been dressed in an ill fitting suit for the trial, and it hangs on him, like he's somehow gotten smaller since he last had occasion to wear it. The suit makes the handcuffs around his wrists seem bizarre and out of place.

Will's lawyer is already arguing, protesting the need for handcuffs, claiming it's ridiculous and prejudicial. The judge and the two lawyers disappear immediately into the judge's chambers, and before he realizes what he's doing, Aaron leans forward, toward the defense table, and says, "Will?"

Will turns around, looking startled and immediately wary. Aaron's momentarily taken aback by the closer look at the other man's face; he's never seen Will Graham before, but he can imagine he hasn't always looked so broken and beaten down.

"Um. I'm Aaron. Alana's brother?" Will's face changes at the mention of her name, and his eyes immediately dart the gallery, searching for her. "She's sequestered until she testifies, so she asked me to...let her know how it's going." Will's looks back at him. "But...she's here, man. Insisted on coming, even though she can't be in here. She's in one of the other rooms." He gives an awkward, uneasy half smile. "Just thought you should know."

The corner of Will's mouth lifts into the slightest fraction of a smile, relief sweeping over his face. "Thank you."

~(W*A)~

_When he comes home from Christmas, his mother seems better than he's seen her in a long time, so Aaron doesn't want to question it. He doesn't want to check Alana for bruises, or read too much into the way the ten year old is constantly checking on their mother or talking her through stress, Alana's tone as patient and reassuring as the parent of a toddler._

_But Jamie's stocking is still hung on the chimney, even though their dad's has long since been taken out of rotation. And on Christmas morning, when Max reaches inside it to extract the customary mix of fruit and candy, their mother screams at him that it's not his._

_Everyone freezes. It's been an uneventful holiday, as blessedly normal as they get these days, right up to that moment._

_Alana recovers first. "Mom, it's okay. They're always taking each other's stuff. Jamie woulda probably stolen Max's candy first." Aaron notes the careful change in tense; she's neither playing along with or dismissing the delusion._

_Slowly, their mom's face relaxes. "You're right." She gives Max, then the others, an admonishing look. "You boys should grow out of that. Honestly."_

_Aaron pulls his little sister aside that night. "How's everything going?"_

_"Fine." It's an automatic answer._

_"No, really, though."_

_"Really. She's mostly pretty okay."_

_He shouldn't accept that, but he does. It's too easy. Just like it's too easy to forget about the tiny, worrisome incidents and instead remember the overall feeling of stability. It's too easy to go back to college, to girls and baseball and parties and friends, and tell himself he's done his duty at home._

~(W*A)~

Aaron does what he's supposed to. On the first day, he summarizes the opening arguments and Jack Crawford's testimony. The prosecution is getting all the FBI witnesses done first, so on the second day Beverly Katz is a witness early on, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else.

Alana's mentioned her; Aaron knows they became friends after Will's arrest. So after a break for lunch, when he returns to the courtroom and sees Beverly looking for a seat on the defense side of the gallery, he goes up to her. "Beverly? I'm Aaron. Alana's brother."

"Oh, right. Hi." Bev nods in recognition. "She told me you were here."

"Want to sit?"

"Thanks." She settles beside him on the bench, the same seat he had yesterday, right behind the defense table.

"How do _you_ think it's going?" he asks after a moment.

Beverly shrugs a little, expression grim. "Too early to tell. This part was always going to be a shit show. The evidence is damning, nothing we can do about that. The question isn't really whether or not he did it, you know?"

"Right." Aaron goes quiet for a moment, then asks, "What about Alana?" Off Beverly's questioning look, he clarifies, "Do you think she'll be okay?"

Eyes clouding over, Beverly frowns. "Honestly? I think that's going to depend on the verdict." She shakes her head a little. "She's thrown herself into this trial. More than anyone else. She'll never forgive herself if he doesn't come home."

Aaron gives a short, humorless laugh. "Honestly, I probably won't be able to relax either way."

Bev looks at him sideways. "Why's that?" Before he can answer, though, understanding lights in her eyes. "Ah. Alana and Will."

"She's my little sister," he says, slightly defensive. "I think I'm allowed to be a little concerned about her possibly...getting involved with a guy who's in jail for murder.

Beverly considers him for a moment, then nods. "That's fair. But you should know...he's a good man. He's not sick anymore...and he'd die before he hurt her."

The conversation ends then, as a bailiff escorts Will back inside and court resumes.

He sits with Beverly again the next day, a day when the prosecutor begins parading out the family members of the murder victims. It's a tough one to get through, and at the end of the day, Aaron and Beverly are both drained when they go to meet Alana.

"So?" Alana asks him as soon as she emerges from the conference room where she spends each day.

"Marisa Shore's mother, Cassie Boyle's dad, and Georgia Madchen's mom." He rattles off the witnesses.

"And?"

Aaron shrugs, uncomfortable. "Oh, you know. They're kinda showy witnesses. Didn't say anything the FBI people hadn't already covered."

Alana's face relaxes just a little, but then Beverly interrupts, "Um, no, actually. It wasn't great." Alana looks at her, and Beverly continues grimly, "Marisa Shore's mother had half the jury in tears. The lawyer obviously coached them all to make a big thing out of their kids deserving justice." Alana's face is slowly draining of color. "And they're leaning hard on the Hobbs stuff. Claiming the fact that he was working with another person isn't consistent with a dissociative state...especially that phone call."

Alana whips her head to look at Aaron, expression accusatory. "You haven't told me _any_ of that." When he has no response, she shakes her head a little, exhaling sharply. "You know what? Forget it. Beverly's not sequestered anymore, she can just tell me. You're not going to give me the truth, you can just go home." Upset, she pushes past them and heads out of the courthouse.

Aaron gives Beverly a look. "Thanks a lot."

She lifts an eyebrow, unapologetic. "She's not a fucking little kid, Aaron. You can't protect her from this."

He bristles immediately. "Believe me, I'm well aware what I can't protect Alana from."

Beverly looks at him for a moment, then sighs and moves past him, hurrying to catch up with Alana.

~(W*A)~

_He finishes his first year of college, but stays on campus for most of the summer, still training with the baseball team and taking a few classes, hoping to lighten his load for the semesters when they're in season. Time passes quickly, often without him noticing._

_Ben and Max start school. Ben wins a partial scholarship to a small college, but he and Max both have to reluctantly and ashamedly accept their father's tuition help after the second phone call they've gotten from him in three years._

_Aaron calls Alana once a week, on Sunday nights. She doesn't give him much to go on, and he presses just hard enough to feel like he gave her a chance to. He talks to his mother less frequently, but each time he tells himself she sounds better._

_Sophomore year ends. Junior begins. Aaron turns twenty-one and college gets even better. He lives in a house with three other baseball players. He'll be starting pitcher in the coming season. To his surprise, he falls for a girl and finds himself completely okay with a committed relationship._

_It happens one night in January. He and Tracie, his girlfriend, are asleep in his bed when the light flips on and Jason, his catcher, bellows at him from the doorway, "Aaron, _phone_."_

_Aaron startles awake, disoriented. The light throws him off, and for a moment he has no idea what time of day it is. The digital clock at his bedside informs him it's nearly three a.m._

_Jason tosses the cordless phone unceremoniously at him. It hits Tracie in the shoulder, and she yelps, hurling a pillow at the doorway. Jason dodges it easily, glaring at Aaron. "It's your sister. Maybe tell her some of us have early mid terms, yeah?"_

_Aaron's immediately alert, already feeling sick. He fumbles for the phone. "Al?"_

_"Aaron?" Her voice sounds tiny. For the last few years, he's gotten used to Alana sounding much, much older than she is, but right now she sounds about six years old instead of thirteen._

_"Hey, kiddo, what's wrong?" His voice is shaking._

_"Um. I..." Her voice catches. "Mom died. I mean. She's dead."_

_It feels like there's a block of ice sitting in his chest. "What?"_

_"I'm sorry." She's trying so hard not to cry. "I was asleep. And I woke up because I heard water running, but she'd already...she was in the bathroom. There was cleaning stuff everywhere, I think she'd been cleaning it but then there was all this blood...I called 911 and an ambulance came but they said she was already dead."_

_Tracie is staring up at him with bleary eyed concern. It's so bright in his room. This is some sort of dream. "Alana. Where are you?"_

_"The hospital."_

_"Is someone with you?"_

_"There's a social worker," she whispers, sounding terrified at the prospect._

_"Okay." He's out of bed, pulling on, for some reason, socks. "Okay, Al, I'm coming home, alright? It'll take me a few hours, but I'm coming."_

_"Kay." She sniffles, then takes a long, shaky breath before saying, "I still gotta call Max and Ben and tell them."_

_For some reason, this is what nearly punctures Aaron, and tears spring to his eyes, his voice softening. "No, no. It's okay. I'll call them, Al. I'll take care of it, you just sit tight and wait for me."_

_Five hours later he gets to the hospital. She's in a waiting room with a social worker, and she sees him before he sees her. He hears his name, "_Aaron_!," from behind him, and as soon as he turns Alana barrels into him, sobbing. He bend down on his knees and her arms go around his neck like they used to when she was a little kid._

_He finds out later that they tried to take her to a group home to spend the night, but Alana categorically refused to leave the hospital because that's where her brother was coming for her. In the months that follow, Aaron will think a lot of this moment, the way her voice nearly cracked in half when she said his name, how tightly she'd clung to him, like he was someone who could save her._

~(W*A)~

The prosecution's final day of witnesses is another bad one. Hannibal Lecter has been subpoenaed, to testify about Garret Jacob Hobbs, the moments when Will would have had to make that phone call, and how lucid he was before and after. There's also a neurologist who claims to be an expert on encephalitis, claiming that it isn't associated with violent acts.

Under Beverly's watchful eye, Aaron tells Alana everything.

It's a few days into the defense's case when Alana finally testifies. Aaron's eyes are on Will's back when they call her name, and he notes the way Will sits up straighter, life infused into his posture for the first time in days, his head whipping around, searching for her.

Aaron can't see Will's expression, so he looks at his sister's. Her eyes go straight to the defense table, even as she's walking to the witness stand, and immediately her whole face breaks open into a look of pained tenderness that's utterly unrecognizable to Aaron.

His stomach twists into knots, and he's suddenly incredibly nervous for her. Surely she's too close to this. "Oh, God, she's gonna lose it..." He mutters, sinking low in the bench.

Beverly hits him with the back of her hand. "Shut up, she's got this."

And she does. Aaron slowly relaxes as he watches his sister. She's sharp and focused, obviously prepared. She's sounds incredibly intelligent and professional, while still keeping her explanations basic enough for the laymen of the jury to understand. And if she glances at Will with more frequency than might be expected from a witness, it doesn't take away from what she's saying. Aaron feels oddly relieved, listening to her. He doesn't understand how anyone wouldn't believe her. She makes it all sound so irrefutable.

The cross-examination, though, is hard to watch.

The prosecutor starts out with simple yes or no questions, forcing Alana to admit, over and over, that it's _possible_ the encephalitis wasn't the driving force. Aaron can hear the terseness in her voice, can practically see her baring her teeth as she struggles to keep her temper in check.

Then the laywer starts calling her whole testimony into question, asking if it's true that there were "romantic overtures" from Will Graham to herself.

Her eyes snap to Jack Crawford in the gallery, gaze shocked and accusatory, before answering. She maintains that they were friendly colleagues. Admits, with prompting, that Will kissed her once, but nothing happened beyond that. She allows that, yes, he did kill a serial killer that was coming after her once, but, no, her gratitude doesn't affect her professional opinion.

"I've given you medical, scientific facts on Will Graham's illness," Alana says coolly. "As well as an objective, psychologically supported explanation of his work, and nothing you can say will taint the _facts_."

"Fine, fine. Just tell me one thing, Dr. Bloom...do you have feelings for the defendant?"

Her eyes snap to Will even as the defense attorney loudly, angrily objects. It's sustained, and the prosecutor moves on, but the answer is all over Alana - and Will's - face.

~(W*A)~

_It's crowded in the two bedroom apartment. Alana and her mom had moved there in the previous year, when they could no longer keep up the house payments._

_No one wants to be in their mom's room, so Max sleeps on the couch, Ben takes an air mattress on the floor of the living room, and Aaron puts a sleeping bag on the floor of Alana's room. But in the days after their mother's suicide, as Aaron makes funeral arrangements and works desperately to track down their father, they're all on top of each other, the most togetherness the surviving Bloom siblings have had in years._

_That's how Aaron accidentally bursts into Alana's bedroom when she's just come in from a shower. She's wrapped in a towel, but her shoulders, legs, and the top half of her back are bare, and Aaron sees more than enough evidence of their mother's episodes in the five seconds before his sister whips around and yelps at him, "Get _out_!"_

_He shoots her a helpless look. "Al. Why didn't you tell me?"_

_She tightens the towel, glancing down as though surveying her own injuries. Then she lifts her head to look at him, wrinkling her nose in a blatant, teenage girl "duh" look. "You _knew_."_

_There's nothing he can say to that. He did know. He's always known. He just hadn't done anything._

_For a long moment they stand there, Alana dripping wet and self conscious, Aaron nearly breaking under the weight of his own guilt. Then she looks him the eyes, expression fierce. "It doesn't mean I'm not sad she's dead."_

_"Of course not."_

_"She didn't know what she was doing."_

_"I know." Aaron turns to go. "Sorry. I'll leave."_

~(W*A)~

The night after the closing arguments, Beverly comes over to Alana's after court adjourns, and the three of them sit in her living room with Will's dogs and get drunk.

They are trying to forget that this is in no way a slam dunk case. The truth is it could go either way, and they don't want to spend the entire night obsessing over which.

But Alana gets progressively quieter as the night goes on, and the alcohol isn't making anyone feel better. Around midnight, Alana tells Bev she can stay over rather than bother with a cab. Aaron offers to give up the guest room and sleep on the couch, and she's too drunk to argue.

One bit of relief at least, is that the beer makes it easier to sleep.

But Aaron wakes up around 3:30 to the sound of a barking dog, immediately followed by his sister's voice, hissing, "Ssshhhh, Winston, it's okay, boy."

Aaron sits up, squinting at Alana's dim outline across the living room. "You okay?"

"Yeah, couldn't sleep." She waves a hand at him. "I'm just getting some water, go back to sleep."

"Nah, I'm awake now." Aaron makes a face; his mouth is dry and tastes of beer. "I could use some water, too, actually."

They go into the kitchen, leaving the lights off as Alana opens the fridge and passes him a bottle of water, takes one for herself, and then leans against the fridge. Aaron perches himself on the edge of a counter. For awhile they're quiet; Aaron's promised himself not to push her to talk, so after awhile of her silence, he's about to give up and go back to bed, when Alana says hesitantly, "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

The words are slow and halting, and she isn't looking at him even though he can barely see her face in the darkness anyway. "The night Mom died...I was awake. I...I heard the water running." Aaron doesn't say anything, just waits. "I mean, I didn't know what she was doing. But I knew it was pretty damn weird for her to be cleaning the bathroom, or even just taking a bath, in the middle of the night. She hadn't done anything that bizarre for awhile. And the water...it was left running for _so_ long. But I didn't want to deal with her. So I just stayed in bed. For way longer than I should have." Finally, she lifts her face to look at him, eyes glowing in the dark of the kitchen. "If I'd checked sooner, they probably would've been able to save her. Cutting your wrists...it's a pretty imprecise suicide. But she had lots of time to bleed."

Aaron turns this over in his mind, absorbing this new bit of history, oddly ambivalent. Finally, he says, "You didn't know. And what she used to do to you...of course you didn't want to deal with it." He waits; Alana doesn't respond, so he adds, "It wasn't your fault."

"I know that," Alana says calmly. "I know that _now_. But it took me a really long time to stop blaming myself. High school and most of college, even. That was...a pretty bad time for me." Her voice softens. "I guess we were all blaming ourselves for things."

He looks away. This would be the moment, the time to apologize and hug and maybe cry. But he still can't do it. Even discussing this at all is too new.

After a stretch of silence, Alana changes the subject, voice suddenly small, "He might lose."

Aaron looks up at her. "I know."

Her face tightens, eyes glistening a little brighter.

"You did great," Aaron adds firmly. "You really did, you fought for him. If he loses, it's not because of you."

Alana's quiet for a moment, picking absently at the label on her water bottle. Finally, she says in a low voice, "When Will kissed me...I kissed back. And then I walked away, but I didn't want to." She purses her lips, voice tight. "I told him I had feelings for him, but that he was...unstable. And that nothing could happen until that changed. He was hallucinating, and I kept...I kept thinking of Mom, of how she'd sit there and talk to Jamie. But...it turns out, he's nothing like her. It was this physical, neurological thing. And I didn't catch it. I _should_ have caught it..."

"Hey." Aaron jumps off the counter to stand in front of her, dead serious. "You're not his doctor. He didn't _want_ you to be his doctor."

"I know."

"It's not your fault."

She doesn't answer. They don't go back to sleep.

~(W*A)~

_It takes him a week after the funeral to find their dad._

_Ben and Max are back at school already, glad to be gone. Aaron takes an extra week off, but he's getting nervous. Baseball practice has started. Any longer, and his week off will turn into a semester. Either that, or he'd have to stick Alana in a foster home. He doesn't want to ask himself what he'll do._

_It's Max and Ben's tuition that does it. It finally occurs with him to get in touch with their schools and find out about the payments. It takes a lot of phone calls and a lot of groveling and playing to their sympathy, practically begging for pity, even, but he manages to track his father down._

_He's blunt when he tells his dad about the suicide, and he has no patience for the subsequent shock and grief and apologies._

_The next day, Aaron stands with Alana in the now nearly empty apartment, several suitcases stacked at her feet. It's quiet; she isn't talking much lately._

_He's looking out the window when an unfamiliar car pulls up at the curb and their dad gets out. Aaron turns back to Alana._

_"Listen. It's gonna be okay."_

_"Okay," she parrots listlessly._

_"I'll call you every week, alright? Same as before." She doesn't answer, and he amends, "Twice a week."_

_"Okay."_

_"And if something happens, if you need anything, just tell me." He cracks a smile. "We could have a code word, if you want."_

_But she's not a little kid anymore, and she doesn't smile at that. "I can probably just tell you."_

_"Fair enough." He hugs her, then, hard._

_After a moment the door opens, and their dad steps tentatively inside. He looks old and exhausted, but Aaron barely spares him a glance._

_He seems to sense there's no point in bothering with his son, and instead shoots a small smile at Alana. "Hey, baby."_

_She looks away, hoisting a backpack over her shoulder and grabbing a suitcase without saying a word._

_Mr. Bloom finally seems to accept there won't be a warm reunion. He reaches a hand toward his daughter, but stops short of resting it on her shoulder. "Ready to get going?"_

_Alana nods, and her dad grabs the rest of her bags. As they walk out of the room, she glances back to Aaron, the dull mask slipping from her face for just a second, something panicked and pleading taking its place instead._

_It's another moment Aaron will think about a lot in the years that follow._

~(W*A)~

The jury files back into the courtroom and Aaron hears Alana make a soft, gasping sound beside him. He reaches for her hand, and her fingers instantly wrap around his in a viselike grip, but she doesn't take her eyes off Will, directly in front of her at the defense table.

"Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?"

"We have, Your Honor."

"And is that verdict unanimous?"

"It is."

A clerk of the court walks to the foreman to take a folded piece of paper. The walk to the juror, and then back to the judge to deliver the written verdict seems to last an eternity. Aaron can feel his sister shaking.

The judge looks down at the piece of paper then lifts his head, face blank. "Will the defendant please rise?"

Will's lawyer gets to his feet, but Will doesn't follow suit. The lawyer tugs on his elbow, and Will throws a look over his shoulder, meeting Alana's eyes, his expression terrified, before he's able to stand unsteadily.

The judge reads off the list of charges. "...and in these matters of murder in the first degree, how do you find the defendant?"

It's a long, leaden moment. So silent.

The foreman clears his throat. "Guilty, Your Honor."

"_NO_." Alana's hand rips from Aaron's, and she's on her feet in an instant, her instinctive protest the first note in a swell of reaction from the gallery.

Alana sways unsteadily on her feet, expression frozen in horror. Will hasn't moved. His name claws its way up her throat, swelling like a scream, but when it comes out it's a small, trembling mess, "Will..."

He turns to look at her, his face paper white, looking like a frightened little boy. A pleading note in his voice, he whispers, "Alana..."

She moves right against the divider between the gallery and the defense table, and Will nearly stumbles toward her, a crooked, gasping sound emerging from his throat.

Alana grabs the jacket of his suit, tugging him close. She weaves her other hand through his hair, and his forehead drops against hers, both of them clinging in desperate, dizzy panic.

"Time to go," the bailiff tugs Will away, but Alana keeps her hand on his jacket, tightening her grip like in a childish tug of war, as if she can keep him with her if she only wants it bad enough.

The bailiff grabs his wrists to reattach the handcuffs, and Will's finally forced to step out of her reach. Alana's throat closes up, everything inside her unraveling. Her words trip over each other as she tells him, "I'll fix this, Will, we'll appeal it, we'll find something, I promise, I'm gonna fix it..."

"Alana..." It's like her name is the only word he can manage, but his eyes are huge and full of so many things unspoken, too much to say now, and he can't even try as the bailiff tugs him away, leading him out of the courtroom.

The gallery's cleared out now, the reporters hurrying to try to get statements from the lawyers. Beverly's still sitting, her head tipped against the back of the bench, staring at the ceiling in disbelief. Aaron stands up, putting a hand gently on his sister's back.

"C'mon, Al," he murmurs quietly. "Let's go."

With sudden and surprising force, she shoves Aaron away from her, and he stumbles against the bench, nearly tripping, as Alana yells, the pitch of her voice edging rapidly toward hysteria, "Get _off_ me, they can't do that, they can't just _take_ him, they _can't_, it isn't right, he didn't...he didn't know what he was doing, h-he couldn't..." Her voice falls to pieces and she starts sobbing. Aaron straightens up and puts his arms around her, letting her collapse against his chest and cry into his shirt, once again comforting his sister in the aftermath of something he couldn't protect her from.


	2. She's Raising Hell to Give to Me

_Oh, I can tell_

_She's raising hell to give to me_  
_She got me warm_  
_So please don't get me rescued_

_"Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy."_

- Red Dragon, chapter seventeen

~(W*A)~

He is waiting until he sees Alana.

It shouldn't be long. Even now, a year after his trial and sentencing, she still comes two, sometimes even three, times each week. Will isn't the most talkative conversationalist, these days, but Alana has grown adept at filling the silence. She comes armed with information about his appeal, or briefs being filed on his behalf, or research about past pardons and overturned sentences. After the past year, Alana could probably hold her own on a state bar exam.

Now, as he waits for her to visit, Will spends a lot of time lying on his bunk, murmuring quietly to himself. He rattles off long, unconnected strings of random words, just getting reacquainted with the sound of his own voice, stretching dormant muscles.

It's a Thursday evening when she shows up. Will knows before he even sees her, as the narrow corridor fills with the familiar jeering catcalls that usually mean there's a good probability it's Alana walking the gauntlet that is Death Row.

Will's sentencing had been the week immediately after the guilty verdict was handed down. It had essentially been a condensed version of the trial itself: the prosecution had once again paraded out the families of Will's supposed victims, begging for justice. They'd emphasized Garret Jacob Hobbs, his supposed phone call, claiming his work with an accomplice, as well as his quick thinking to warn him when police were on the way, were inconsistent with a dissociative state. They insisted Will's encephalitis was a coincidence the defense was now trying to capitalize on. They had reminded the jury about Will's fishing reels, seen as trophies. About the way Abigail Hobbs' ear was discovered, and the probable cannibalism of other victims.

And all the jury had seen was _serial killer_.

He'd been moved from Baltimore to a regular state prison - no longer _criminally insane_, only _criminal_ - to be housed among other men condemned to die.

Strings had been pulled, influence thrown around, and somehow Alana - as an FBI psychiatrist working on Will's case - had been given the status of a prison nurse, or one of the spiritual advisors who came to pray with inmates. She did not abide by weekly visiting hours, did not have to meet with Will with glass between them or speak through a telephone. She could come as often as she wanted and walk right up to his cell, outfitted in the required flak jacket.

The yelling gets louder, at the cells closest to Will, as she approaches. He winces, feeling the familiar lurch of his stomach at the reminder that Alana deals with this several times a week because of him.

_Hey, baby, you here for me?_

_Why you waste all your time with Graham, you know I'd treat you real nice._

_Get over here, bitch, I got somethin' to show you._

Still, Alana's face is completely unperturbed when she steps into view. "Hey."

"Hi." He stands up from the cot and approaches the bars. Will smiles with some difficulty, feeling like certain muscles in his face are coming alive for the first time in years.

Already Alana looks taken aback. It's been awhile since Will bothered to get up from his bed during her visits. She immediately closes the little space between herself and the cell, reaching through the bars out of pure instinct. It's been so long since she touched him, and she feels strangely panicked, like the opportunity won't come around again. Her hand closes pointlessly around his wrist. "Is...everything okay?"

Will's face softens, and suddenly the smile doesn't feel like such a strain to hold. His eyes flick to her hand, holding tight lest he move away again, and Will gently lifts his arm to rest his hand around the bars, allowing Alana to release her hold on his wrist and instead slide her hand on top of his. He moves his eyes to meet hers for a brief second, and says, with complete sincerity, "Right now? Everything's great."

You wouldn't know from his voice that Alana was here three days ago, or four days before that, or three before that; Will sounds like he hasn't seen her in years.

"Okay..." Slowly, Alana smiles back, still puzzled, but unable to deny how good it feels to see him smile. "I met with Derek earlier." Derek is Will's defense attorney. "I gave him the research on the case I was telling you about on Monday, the one where the sentence was overturned at the District Court-"

"Alana?"

Again, she looks momentarily thrown; Will never interrupts, barely even responds. Her visits are essentially comprised of lengthy monologues. "Yeah?"

"Today...could we maybe not talk about the case?"

"Of course," she says immediately, quirking a corner of her lips. "We can talk about - or not talk about - whatever you want."

Will leans his forehead against the bars, just beside their hands, and closes his eyes. "Tell me about the dogs."

Alana's chest tightens. They used to do this in the early days of Will's incarceration, back when he was still in Baltimore. "Okay." She thinks for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is quiet and slow, painting him a picture with her words. "I woke up this morning and my legs were asleep. Total pins and needles. So I look up, and Winston's draped across over my thighs. Rolled over on his side, tongue hanging out, his hind leg twitching...and completely on top of me."

Will grins lazily, eyes still shut. "Great, now I'm jealous of my own dog."

A laugh bursts out of her, sudden and surprising, and Alana squeezes Will's hand before continuing. She spends twenty minutes describing moments with the dogs: Bear's newfound fascination with mirrors, Kylie's recent habit of falling asleep on top of Alana's closed laptop, presumably enjoying the warmth.

After awhile, Will opens his eyes and watches her instead. He notices the way she purses her lips every few words, like she's tasting the finale syllable. He memorizes the exact shade of blue in her eyes, how soft and warm they are when she speaks about the animals. He observes the tilt of her head as she looks up at him.

Will takes note of it all, committing everything about her to memory, in case these details are things he can take with him.

When she finally runs out of stories, Alana exhales slowly, and gives him a half-smile. "Want more?"

"That's good. Thanks." Will smiles back, but he can already feel his stomach beginning to knot up, hot dread already pooling in his gut for the moment she leaves.

"Do you still hang out with Beverly?" he asks dumbly after a quiet beat.

Alana looks perplexed by the question, but answers easily, "Yeah. She basically kidnaps me and drags me out. Or she just shows up at my house. With beer."

"That's good." Will nods, thinking. "And your brother. The one who came from my trial. You see him much?"

Giving him a strange look, Alana answers, "Uhhh sometimes. He lives about two hours away. But he calls twice a week." Her brow furrows. "Why?"

"I don't know." Will hesitates, his eyes flicking to the ground, and then back up to their still stacked hands. Finally, he glances up at her. "One more question?"

"Of course." She lifts an eyebrow. "If I get one after yours."

"Sure." Will swallows, going quiet for a moment before he asks haltingly, "If...if I hadn't been convicted. If...they'd let me out after Baltimore, if I'd gone home..." Alana's face falls, eyes swelling with sadness before he even gets to his question. "...do you think you would have...gone on a date? With me?"

Her face muscles contract, throat narrowing. Alana curls her lips together, and it takes a second before she can extract an answer from her throat.

Off her silence, Will hastily clarifies, "I, I mean when the encephalitis was better-"

"I know." Alana lifts her free hand and snakes it through the narrow gap in the bars to touch his face, the edges of her words falling away, voice flannel soft as she answers, "Of course I would have."

A smile breaks across his face, and Will's eyes go hazy and far away, like he's imagining another life. Alana watches, gauging him, and after a moment of scrutiny she tentatively prompts, "What would we have done?"

Will doesn't answer right away, and Alana quickly regrets the question, doubting her own guess that he wanted to imagine it.

Seconds before she can take it back, tell him to forget it, Will starts to speak, slow but intensely focused, like this is answer he needs to get right. "There's this...lake. Where I fish. It's got a pier. We could have...made sandwiches or -. No, wait, gotten takeout Chinese to take there and eat. It's...it's nice out, when the sun's setting over the lake." His eyes flick up toward hers, then away again. "Or maybe we should've just started with dinner and a movie."

"No," she whispers in a small voice. There are tears in her eyes, and her lips are trembling. When she looks up and meets his eyes, her smile spreads like a fault line during an earthquake. "No, the lake sounds perfect."

A tear rolls down her face, and Will reaches through and cups her cheek, brushing it away with his thumb. "It would've been good, right?"

"Me and you?" Her voice is tight. "Yeah. It would've been really, really good, Will." Alana inhales sharply, closing her eyes for a brief moment before saying resolutely, "It's not over. Okay? We're working really hard on this next appeal, I swear."

"I know you are." Will can't look at her when he says it. He traces his thumb over the curve of her cheekbone, letting the silence linger for a bit. Eventually, Will breaks it, saying, "What was yours?"

It takes a second for Alana to shake herself out of the moment. "My what?"

"Your question." He quirks his lips. "You said you had a question after mine, remember?"

"Right..." She squints a little, refocusing, then looks at him uncertainly. "Did something happen?" Off his look, she clarifies. "You seem different. I mean. _Good_ different, but..._did_ something happen?"

Will doesn't have to lie when he tells her, "No. Nothing happened." Because nothing has. Not yet. "I just...I've been wanting to see you."

"I can come back tomorrow," she offers immediately, pressing her fingers down a bit and weaving them between his.

"Okay." He doesn't think about tomorrow. Can't.

Will takes another moment just to look at Alana. She is so beautiful. In that moment, her fingers intertwined with his, his hand on her cheek, Will can almost believe it is enough. He can still have this every few days, can keep getting up from his bunk and walking to the bars, can hold her hand and talk and maybe it can be enough.

But it won't be. He's had over a year to learn that.

"COs will be coming soon," Alana says in a quiet, reluctant voice after awhile. "With dinner." Will's lungs shrink, and he has to tighten his grip on the bars so she doesn't feel his hand shaking beneath her own. "But I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay." It takes effort to force the word out. He lets go of the bar and takes her hand and lifting it to his lips. Alana reaches up with her free hand, tangling her fingers in his limp curls for just a moment. "Tomorrow."

She gives him a small, unsteady smile before gently pulling away. "See you."

His throat closes up, and Alana's three steps away with her back to him before he calls out, "Alana?" She turns. Will's word pile up in his throat for a second, tangling, but eventually he manages to extract a single, shaky, "Thank you."

She gives him another smile laced with confusion, nodding a little. "Bye, Will."

And then she's gone.

~(W*A)~

Four hours after she left Will, Alana lets the dogs out, as she does every night before bed. She's felt strange ever since she left the prison. Something's gnawing at the edge of her brain, more feeling than thought. She doesn't know what it is that's worrying her, hasn't even tried to theorize.

But it's strong enough that by eleven, she's teetering on the edge of panic without really understanding why. So she brings the dogs back inside and, trying not to analyze her own actions, drives to the prison for the second time that day.

She gets lucky. Peter's one of the COs on the night shift. They're friendly enough; Alana did a study on one of their death row inmates a few years ago, and she and Peter would exchange small talk on her way in and out to interview him. Since Will was transferred here, Peter's been good about letting her stay as long as she wants, and letting her know the best stretches of time for uninterrupted visits.

Still, even he's uncertain when she shows up so late.

"It's just past lights out, Doc. You know I can't-"

"Look, Peter, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. It's kind of an emergency."

He gives her a skeptical look. "A psychiatric emergency?"

She hesitates. "I'll be quick. If he's asleep, I'm in and out. If he's awake, we'll talk fast." Alana looks at Peter, sensing he's close to giving in. "Please."

Peter sighs, passing her a flak jacket. "Make it fast."

The light's dim on the maximum security tier, and it's quieter than she's ever heard it. Most of the inmates are lying on their bunks, either asleep or zoned out; she's in tennis shoes instead of heels, so they don't look up when she walks by. Alana can hear the rhythmic squeaking of someone's mattress, accompanied by soft grunting, and Alana makes sure to keep her eyes straight ahead.

She knows the exact space between the security door and Will's cell; she could close her eyes and still sense the moment she gets to him.

Alana stops in front of the cell and freezes.

Will standing in the back of the tiny room, tugging on bedsheets that have been ripped into strips and tied on the bars above his window.

There's a monster clawing at Alana's chest. Her legs go liquid, her throat narrowing. For a moment she can't speak, can only watch, stricken, waiting for the image to in front of her to change, for this not to be happening.

Then Will grabs the end of the bedsheet, pulling it into a loop and knotting it.

"Will?" Her voice is tiny; she sounds about seven years old.

His head snaps around to look at her, his eyes in the darkness huge and white and, when he registers her presence, horrified, like an animal caught in a trap.

For a long, still moment they stare at each other. Then fear registers on Will's face, and he drops the bedsheets and steps toward the bars, one hand out, placating. "Alana. Please..."

She physically shuffles a few inches back, unconsciously shaking her head like she's rejecting the reality in front of her. "Will..."

"Alana, please, don't..." He comes right up against the bars, eyes wild, a desperately pleading look on his face. "Don't tell them. I'll have to go to solitary, please, _please_ don't let them put me on suicide watch..."

She emits a soft cry at that, the word _suicide_ slamming into her chest. For a second, she's genuinely afraid her legs will give out from beneath her; her body jackknifes, and she ends up half kneeling on the ground at the edge of the cell, one hand clutching the bars for support.

"Please." Will drops down on one knee, right in front of her. _Please_, Alana." His voice is so raw, equal parts terrified and desperate.

"Will..." Alana's voice is shaking, and there's nothing behind it, barely a breath. She screws her eyes shut, so tight it feels like she's fighting back blood instead of tears. She gets a sudden, flashing image of her mother, lying in the floor of the bathroom, the bathtub overflowing, blood mingling with water and spilled cleaning supplies, the knife from the kitchen beside her. "_Why_?"

"You have to know why," he counters quietly. "You _know_, Alana, they're gonna kill me anyway - "

She opens her eyes to look at him, finally. "We are _years_ away from that, Will-"

"I don't _want_ years," he insists desperately, the final syllable cracking. "Not like this, Alana, please..._please_ just let me go."

Alana physically reels back from the bars, her voice splitting in two, "I _can't_."

"You have to, you have to, please-"

"Will, you still have appeals, I can still _fix_ this, just let me try, please let me try-"

His forehead thumps against the bars. "Derek already said the best we can hope for is try to commune the sentence down to life, and that's even worse."

Panicked, Alana blurts out, "Fuck Derek, then, we'll get you someone else -"

Will painstakingly lifts his eyes, giving her a weary look. "No lawyer's gonna say anything different. Everyone's already decided that I'm a serial killer-"

"_I_ haven't," she hisses fiercely. "I haven't decided that."

"But you can't fix this, Alana," Will counters quietly, tone hollow. "I know you want to, and I know you've tried, but...you can't." He covers her hand with his, gripping tightly, both of them shaking. "You have to let me go, please..."

"No. You _can't_, I won't let you." She can feel herself unraveling. "I'm _not_ finished with you yet, Will, okay? I'm not."

"I'm gonna die in here, Alana, no matter what I'm gonna die here. Either tonight, or they kill me in ten years, or that make me stay here my whole life until this place is what kills me..." His voice unspools, and the tears come, for both of them. "I can't do it anymore, Alana, please don't make me, _please_ don't make me..."

"But I _need_ you." The words slip out, soaked in tears, before Alana can stop it.

"Not from in here. You don't, you can't."

"Will, _please_-"

A crooked, gasping sound lifts from his throat, and Will lifts his head and looks directly into Alana's eyes. The level of pain and neediness she reads there shoots straight to her chest, sending flames licking around the edges of her heart. "I'm dying, Alana," he whispers in a broken, begging voice. "It's all dying now, all the time, and I just..." His voice catches and trembles. "I _want it to stop_." Will's gaze is locked on hers, for once not flicking away. "Please," he whispers. "Please let me go, please, Alana, please..."

Alana's quiet for a long moment, scrambling for words, for some rock solid argument, a way to explain to him that she is not ready to live in a world without him. Her throat feels like it's tearing open in her frantic desperation to say something that will matter.

It has been a year and a half. He spent five months at Baltimore, before the trial, and just over a year here, only a fraction of the time it will take for his death sentence to be carried out. In that time, Alana has watched Will become a shell, watched the light extinguish behind his eyes, watched the fight drain out of him by degrees. It has been so long since he even mentioned Hannibal, since he mentioned his theories. Since he asked a question about the appeals. Since he even cared.

She has watched this break him. And there's not a second since his arrest that it hasn't ripped Alana to shreds to see him hurt.

She doesn't want to put him through anymore pain. But she knows that, right now, pain is all he has left.

"Will..." Her voice shatters, and Alana drops her head against the bars as she starts to cry, whole body shuddering with hard, quiet sobs.

It is this, the giving in, that nearly undoes him; Will is a convicted murderer whose downfall is his inability to cause pain. Especially to her.

He reaches out, maneuvering his hand through the bars and to the back of Alana's head, gently threading his fingers in her dark hair, the closest he can get to holding her as she cries.

For the first time, his panic at being caught fades just enough to finally register the fact that Alana came back. That some part of her must have suspected this, and that she'd been scared enough to come check on him only hours after her first visit.

It has been a long time since Will has been able to register anyone's misery but his home. Solitude had beaten the empathy - once his most notable trait - right out of him.

But now, the sound of Alana crying cuts him to the quick. In this moment, he would do anything for her. He will take his hurt, if it means sparing her some.

Will leans forward, brushing his lips against the crown of her head between the small gap in the bars, and he lifts the hand not stroking her hair to duck low and touch her cheek. "Okay," he murmurs, a raspy, soothing whisper. "It's okay. I'll stay, alright? I'm not going anywhere, Alana, it's okay."

It takes a moment before she lifts her head to look at him and chokes out softly, "Are you lying?"

The pad of his thumb sweeps over the tracks of Alana's tears. "We said we wouldn't do that, remember?"

She stares at him for a moment, gauging his sincerity, then her whole body sags, a sound that's half-sigh and half-sob slipping from her lips. She reaches out, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck, keeping him close. "I'm so sorry."

Will isn't sure what she's apologizing for: not being able to keep him out of prison in the first place; or convincing him to stick around now.

Alana gives him a helpless look. "How can I make this easier for you? What can I do?"

Will's quiet for a moment, his expression pained when he tells her honestly, "Nothing." Alana's face falls as the truth of it registers, the fact that there truly is no way to make his day to day life better. Will adds, "You already do so much."

"I'm gonna keep doing it," she tells him fiercely. "I know what you said, Will, but I'm not giving up on this appeal. I still think you have a shot...I'll make sure you do. _Please_ don't give up on that."

"I won't," he agrees, but the sentiment is for her rather than himself.

For a long moment they stay there, crouched in a tiny corner of the prison cell, the bars between them, holding onto each other as best they can.

After awhile of silence, Alana's eyes flick over Will's shoulder and immediately darken. "Will you take those down, please?"

He follows her gaze to the hanging, torn bedsheets and nods, reluctantly relinquishing contact and standing up. He walks to the back of the cell and fumbles with the knot of the sheets, feeling the first of many pangs of regret as they fall to a heap on the floor. Will can feel a distant panic stirring, the sort of panic that comes when your way out, the only possible choice you could make, is no longer an option.

Alana stands up, swiping her fingers over her face and watches him dismantle the homemade noose. "CO'll be wondering," she mutters. "Didn't even want me coming in."

Will looks at her, observing the naked fear in her eyes, her reluctance to let him out of her fight. "It's okay," he tells her. "I promise."

Alana nods for a long time, swallowing. Her face softens. "Come here."

Will walks back to the bars, and Alana reaches up, resting her hands on either side of his face and it takes her a moment to figure out what to say. Eventually, she simply whispers a quiet, fierce "Thank you."

~(W*A)~

Alana walks the length of the tier away from Will feeling like she's made of glass, impossibly fragile and thin walled.

She goes back to CO pod to find an older officer with Peter; he gives him a disapproving look when she appears. Alana looks from one to the other, and then says in a flat, empty voice, "Will Graham needs to be put on suicide watch. Look at his sheets and you'll see." She tries not to think about what that will mean for him: three days in an empty solitary cell. But it's the only way she'll be able to walk out of this prison.

They look at each other, and the older CO immediately stands up and heads for the tier. Peter follows, but hesitates at the door, turning. "Dr. Bloom?"

Suddenly exhausted, it takes a monumental effort to look up at him. "What?"

Peter looks at her, noting her eyes, red and swollen from crying, and, with as much gentleness as he can manage, he says, "Just...word of advice? It gets ugly...in there. Suicide attempt, it's...not even neccessarily rock bottom. Just...don't get too close, okay?"

She gives a harsh, ironic laugh, thinking back to her warning to Jack Crawford.

"Too late."


	3. Ungodly Hour

_A/N:_ **TW: mentions of self-harm.**

_Her bag is now much heavier _  
_I wish that I could carry her_  
_But this is our ungodly hour_

_"Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy."_

~Red Dragon, chapter seventeen

~(W*A)~

Beverly hears one of Will's dogs barking from inside the house even as she walks up the steps of Alana's front porch. She tries to peer inside as she rings the doorbell, but doesn't see any of the animals.

Thirty seconds crawl by with no answer, and Beverly lifts her finger again, gearing up for multiple rings, but on a hunch she grabs the doorknob instead.

The door swings open, and Beverly closes and locks it behind her as she steps into the house. "Alana?"

There's no answer, but she finds her soon enough; Alana's sitting at her kitchen table, which is completely covered with papers. About half of her hair is in a ponytail, her eyes bloodshot and slightly manic; she looks like a college student at the tail end of finals week. Most of the dogs are afoot, including Winston, who's howling pitifully in a corner.

Alana doesn't look up when Beverly walks in. She's holding her home telephone to her ear, though her cell phone's on the table in front of her, obviously on speaker, emitting some cheesy, generic music.

One of the dogs runs over and jumps on Beverly's thighs. She absently scratches him behind the ears as Alana begins to speak into the phone, "Hi, Dr. Wexler? This is Alana Bloom, from Georgetown?...Yes, that's right...it's great to talk to you again, too...listen, this might sound strange, but I was calling to see if by chance you have any contacts at Governor Jacobs office...oh...I understand...thanks, anyway." She hangs up, crosses something off a legal pad in front of her, and turns on the phone again to dial another number.

"Uh, hi?" Beverly says loudly.

"Hi." Alana doesn't even look up. "Can you listen to that cell phone? I'm on hold with the governor's office."

Beverly's stomach tightens, the reality of just how difficult this will be only now sinking in.

Winston punctuates a howl with a high pitched whine, and Beverly winces. "What's with him?"

"I don't know, he's been like that all day..." Alana's voice trails off, focus sliding away. "Hi, Mr. Rutledge, this is Dr. Alana Bloom from Georgetown U, we met at the conference in Raleigh last year. I was just calling to find out if you have any contacts at Governor Jacob's office that you could put me in touch with, so if you do, give me a call back as soon as possible. Thanks." She hangs up, once again scribbling on the legal pad.

Beverly goes to sit at the table, dragging a chair close to Alana's. Deciding the best strategy is to cut right to the chase, Beverly says bluntly, "They moved Will to the death watch cell."

"I figured," Alana replies tersely.

"I just came from seeing him," Beverly tells her pointedly.

"Great," she says in a distracted voice, thumbing ostentatiously through yet other notebook.

"He's allowed to have visitors stay up to an hour before."

Alana finally looks up, eyes blazing. "Then maybe you should go back."

"He's asking for _you_."

This touches a nerve, and for a moment pain flickers across Alana's expression, but she looks away again, setting her jaw, stubborn. "I can't go right now. I have phone calls to make."

Beverly eyes her for a moment and then, in a swift single motion, snatches the phone out from Alana's hand. "Alana," she begins in a firm, logical voice. "The governor...he's not gonna grant a stay of execution. You know he won't, not when they cancelled the appeals-"

"And whose fault is that?!" Alana interrupts loudly, voice suddenly shaking with fury.

Slightly startled by the outburst, Beverly hesitates a moment before saying, "He said you haven't been to see him in two weeks?" Alana doesn't answer, and Beverly sighs. "We both know you can't stay mad at him. Not now."

It's been only two years since Will's trial and sentencing, one year since Alana caught him nearly giving up. And five months ago, Will told his lawyer to cancel his coming appeal. To drop the case entirely. Most death row stints stretch out for a decade or more. But that time had started to feel like the greater of the evils, a slower, more painful death sentence.

So Will had stopped fighting. And he hadn't told Alana about it until two months ago, after they'd dragged him into the warden's office to inform him of the set date of execution.

For most of the time since then, she'd favored staunch denial, merely redoubling her legal research and trying to convince him to reopen the case, to blame improper legal council for closing it. Will consistently refused; his lawyer had told him his best case scenario in an appeal was pleading down to life in prison, and he didn't want that. Time - the long, stretching hours he spent alone in his cell - has become his enemy now, and the last thing Will wanted was more of it.

Two weeks ago, the date fast approaching, Alana had finally tried anger: yelling at Will, calling him weak and a coward and a thousand other things she didn't really mean, trying to find the fight left him. But he'd only apologized, over and over, just as he'd done for the past two months, looking so genuinely sorry for _her_, not himself, and that was something Alana couldn't take. So she'd stormed out, and hadn't been back since.

It was the longest stretch she'd gone without seeing him in the two and a half years since Will's arrest.

"Not _mad_," Alana clarifies shortly. "_Busy_."

Beverly goes quiet for a moment, the only sound in the room the peppy music from Alana's phone. Finally, with measured, deliberate calm, Beverly reaches over and pressed "End" on the cell phone.

Letting out a cry of protest, Alana whips around, furious. "What the _hell_?"

"Alana, you need to_ listen to me_," Beverly tells her in a quiet, forceful tone that leaves no room for argument. "This is _happening_. It's happening _tomorrow_. Right this second, Will is in a cell that is next to the execution chamber, and tomorrow they're going to walk him over and they are _going to kill him_." Beverly's voice catches, and Alana shoots up from her chair, pacing pointlessly across the kitchen, like she can put distance between herself and what Beverly's saying.

The force leaves Beverly's voice as she adds quietly, "And if you don't go see him before that happens, you're never going to forgive yourself."

Alana's back is to Beverly, her voice high and tight when she grits out, "What makes you think I'm interested in forgiving myself?"

Beverly softens immediately. "You have to know it's not your fault this is happening. You did everything you could for him." She stands up and walks over to Alana, touching her forearm gently before going to stand in front of her. "But, Alana...he's terrified. And he needs you."

Alana's face tightens and then crumples; tears rush forward, and she presses the heels of her hands over her eyes, inhaling sharply. She presses her lips together, and it takes a while before she can force out quietly, "I don't want to cry when I see him."

"Fuck that," Beverly counters bluntly. "Cry all you want. As long as you go."

~(W*A)~

She's made the forty-five minute drive to the prison countless times over the past two years. Halfway there, it occurs to Alana that this will be her last visit, and she has to pull to the side of the road and be sick.

It feels like she's waiting for the ground to drop out from beneath her as Alana's led through security and then, rather than the usual walk down the tier of death row, she's taken to a solitary cell adjacent to the execution chamber.

She's sees Peter, her favorite CO, the one who once let her into the maximum security tier past lights out when she was worried about Will, before she sees the cell. He's pacing back and forth around the general area, and as the officer who escorted Alana there walks away, Peter meets her eyes and says, "I volunteered to cover the lockdown."

She nods in thanks, unable to get the word out as she follows him the final few feet.

Will's sitting on the floor in the back of the near barren cell, knees bent, elbows resting on top of them, but he jumps to his feet as soon as he sees her. His face breaks open into such genuine relief, it's clear he really thought she might not come. Alana's chest constricts; in that moment, she's never hated herself more.

Any words she had get tangled up in her throat, and for a long moment they simply stare at each other, unable to figure out what to say in this moment.

Eventually Alana breaks the silence, speaking to Peter without taking her eyes off Will. "Let me in the cell."

The guard gives her a startled look. "Doc, you know I can't-"

She drags her gaze from Will to give Peter an authoritative look. "I've been searched twice. _You're_ here. It's no different than meeting in an attorney/client room. And at this point, why the hell not?"

Peter looks at her helplessly. "I could get fired for this-"

"We both know the warden won't be coming by. And it'll be hours before any other officer circles down here." He shakes his head a little, and Alana negotiates softly, "One hour. _Please_."

He sighs, then moves forward and unlocks the cell, Will's whole body on alert as he does.

Alana steps through the door, and immediately Peter shuts it behind her. She and Will stare at each other, momentarily stunned by the lack of barrier between them.

Then Alana snaps out of her daze, and in three quick, purposeful steps she's in his arms.

Will lets out a trembling gasp as his arms go around her, dizzy with the unfamiliar sensation of human contact.

Alana holds Will tightly, breathing him in, though it's not the scent she remembers, the one that makes her think of woods and flannel and dogs and coffee. She can feel the threat of tears already, clawing up the column of her throat and pulsing behind her eyes, so she presses her face against the crook of his neck until she regains control.

They stay like that for a long time, unwilling and unable to let go. All at once, Alana traces her hand up the nape of Will's neck, weaving her fingers through his hair, and they both pull back to look at each other at the same time. There's a heartbeat of hesitation, and in the next second his lips are on hers, a dizzying collision.

It's a sweet but needy devouring, hungry and panicked, and it goes on for awhile. Alana fists the front of his prison scrubs in her free hand, squeezing tight, desperate, like she's holding onto grains of sand in an hourglass, trying to keep their all too limited time from slipping away.

A sob rounds in Alana's throat, and it's only this that makes her disengage her lips from his, pulling back just a little and tugging her lower lip between her teeth. Will's forehead drops against hers, their noses brushing as his hand comes up to touch her cheek. "Thank you for coming," he breathes out softly, the words falling against her lips.

"Of course," she answers tightly. She opens her eyes, hazy and, despite her best efforts, wet. He's so close it hurts her eyes to focus on his face. "What can I do for you?"

Will hesitates. "Will you just...sit with me for awhile? Please?" He sounds so uncertain of everything, like he doesn't even have the right to such a small request.

She puts her hands on either side of his face, kissing him once more, gently, before drawing back. "Of course."

Alana takes his hand and they walk to the tiny cot, the only fixture in the solitary cell, and Alana wonders if any prisoners are able to sleep their final night alive.

They sit side by side on the edge of the cot, still holding hands. Alana rests her head on his shoulder. His thumb moves back and forth across her knuckles, and she can hear the shallowness of his breathing. He's trembling, and after awhile his grip on her hand tightens almost painfully.

Alana lifts her head to look at him, and her heart catches at the naked fear on his face. "Will..." She slides further onto the cot, tugging him after her, and they stretch out on the small bunk, curled together. Alana drapes one hand over Will's waist and rests her head on his chest. He strokes her hair; she can feel him shaking.

"This doesn't feel real," he says quietly after a moment. Alana's throat narrows, assuming he means the coming execution, until Will adds, "Being this close to you."

Alana closes her eyes, and burrows a little closer to him. "I know."

He exhales slowly, shakily, and after pause, says in a small voice, "I'm scared."

"I know." The word breaks in half. Alana bites back her _Me, too_, not wanting to compare her own pain to what he must be going through. But the truth is she's never been more terrified. It feels like the world is ending, and she can hold on to him all she wants, but it won't stop him from being ripped away.

They get more than one hour; Peter gives them nearly four. They don't talk much, just lie there, entangled, trying to make up for two and half years of having glass and bars between them. But they can't begin to make up for what they still have to lose: every moment after tomorrow at ten am, every day she will live without him, all that time they never to to have. It's midnight when Peter comes rushing to the door, fumbling with his keys and hissing, "Someone's coming, you gotta get out."

They both jump to their feet, and Alana's dizzy with panic; there wasn't enough warning, she isn't ready, but Peter grabs her arm and tugs her out, slamming and locking the cell door behind her moments before another CO comes down asking if he wants to switch.

As Peter goes to talk to the other office, Will walks to the door, eyes wide. "Alana?"

"It's okay," she tells him quietly. "I'm staying right here. I won't go anywhere until they make me." She reaches through and grabs his hand reassuringly, though her whole body feels weak and shaky, already missing the closeness of Will's.

They sit on the ground, as close to the bars as they can get. Will plays with one of her hands in both of his, fingers absently drawing patterns in her palms. For the second time, Alana asks him, "What can I do?"

Will thinks for a moment, then says, "Tell me things?"

She frowns, confused. "What kind of..."

"About you. Tell me some of your stories." He peers up at her earnestly. "We didn't have enough time. Usually you, you have years with people, and the random stories of their lives just...come up organically, you know? Me and you, though...we didn't have enough time. But I want to know as many as I can."

It takes a moment for Alana to speak around the lump in her throat. She knows the sort of stories Will means: the anecdotes we slowly pass on to people in our lives, the glimpses we give them into our existence before they were aware of it. But her mind is snagged on the phrase _we didn't have enough time_, because really, that's so much of what's breaking her heart.

She swallows hard and makes herself smile at him. "Okay, let me think..."

She gives him only the good stories, limiting her childhood tales to the years before her brother died and her father left and her mother fell apart. She tells him about the turtle she found in the woods behind her best friend's house, and the subsequent fight with her over who had the right to take it for show and tell. She tells him about the soccer game she won with an accidental header goal. She tells him about the stitches and tetanus shot she got from playing hide and seek with her brothers, when she'd tried to hide on the second floor of a half constructed house on their block and scraped her shoulder on a nail sticking out of the wall.

She skips from age eight to eighteen, telling him about her first college party and how her roommate went home with some boy with the only set of dorm keys they had. She tells him about embarrassingly and unexpectedly running into one of her older brothers on Spring Break in Florida her junior year.

Will soaks them all in. He asks questions, making sure Alana fills even inconsequential details so he can fully picture every moment.

At almost three am she's talked herself hoarse and is running of stories; time's slipping away, and she's finding it harder to steer her mind away from the darker parts of her past.

Will seems to sense her slowing down, and he gives her a small, strained smile. "That's pretty good. Thanks."

"Were those okay?"

"Perfect."

They go quiet for awhile. Alana lifts her hand, wrapping it around his neck for no real reason beyond her need to touch him. Will reaches through the bars, resting his free hand on her knee.

After a bit, he lifts his eyes to hers and says, apropos of nothing, "I'm sorry." His voice wavers the slightest bit. "I'm sorry for giving up. I know I'm a coward."

"Will, no." Tears spring instantly to her eyes. "I didn't mean that, okay? I was only trying to...I don't know what I was trying to do."

"I do." He gives her the most heartbreaking smile she's ever seen. "You were trying to save me. That's all you've been doing for two and half years."

"I'm sorry I couldn't," Alana chokes out. "You have no idea how sorry, Will."

"Don't be," Will responds sincerely, a note of worry in his voice.. "Please don't be, Alana. You..." He pauses, fumbling for the right words, and after a second, he lifts his hand from her knee and gently traces his thumb along the base of her jaw. "You're the one good thing I've had this whole time."

Alana stares at him without blinking until she feels the slow trickle of tears on her cheeks. "God_damn_ it." Angry at herself for breaking so soon, she reaches up impatiently wipes her eyes. Will catches her mid motion, though, and gently pulls her hand to his side of the cell, bringing it to his lips and gently kissing the back of her knuckles. "Thank you for that."

~(W*A)~

"Been thinking about the last words," Will says in a hollow voice, breaking a long stretch of silence. "It just...seems so pointless. Can't think of anything to say."

Her stomach is twisting into knots, but Alana manages to sound steady as she tells him, "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

"Yeah..." He trails off. "They, um. They'll let you stay, right? Until right before?"

She purses her lips. "Up to an hour before."

He nods for a long moment, processing that, then says quietly, "Maybe my last words could just be to you then."

"Whatever you want," Alana agrees as calmly as she can manage, pretending like the word _last_ isn't tearing her open every time he says it.

There's another long pause, then Will asks, "What will you do? After?" It's such a surprising and impossible question that for a moment she can only blink at him. Will explains haltingly, "It's just...strange. To think about everything still...existing. After" He looks at her, waiting.

The question knocks her sideways, and it takes her awhile to find an answer. What _will_ she do after? He is the one dying, and yet imagining the world continuing after that happens is equally inconceivable to Alana.

It feels like she has to drag each word from her throat. "I haven't...started to think about..._after_...yet."

"Right. Sorry." Will's eyes go slightly unfocused. "What time is it?"

"Um..." She has to gently extract her hand from his and squint at her watch. "Four thirty-three."

He closes his eyes, muttering, "Five hours, twenty-seven minutes left."

Dread coils around her lungs and gut like a cobra, squeezing, painful and suffocating. Quietly, she acknowledges, "Yeah, that's right."

Will's shivering, and he starts to murmur, almost to himself, the words tripping over each other, "Right. Right, okay, yeah, okay that's alright, it's okay, it's fine..."

"Will..." Alana reaches for him again, but he reels back slightly, wild eyed, looking like he'll fly apart if she touches him.

"It's okay, I'm alright, I'm okay, it's okay..." Will's voice cracks and his face crumples, and just like his body starts shuddering with harsh, childlike sobs. "Oh, God, I don't wanna go, Alana, I don't wanna go..."

"Will." His tears trigger her own, as naturally as any reflex, and Alana reaches for him. The second her fingers close around his, Will nearly falls forward, leaning against the bars as he cries. Alana winds her whole arm through, cradling his head, and resting her forehead just above his.

She can make out the words sometimes, choked beneath the sobs. "I don't wanna go, please don't make me, please, Alana, I can't do it, I can't..."

"I know..." Alana strokes his hair, ignoring her own tears dripping off her chin, murmuring soothingly, uselessly, "I know, babe, I'm so sorry...I've got you...I know..."

~(W*A)~

"Three hours, eleven minutes," Alana answers mechanically when Will asks her the time, already knowing the countdown is what he wants.

"And, uh...two until you have to go. Right?"

"That's right." There's a place on the inside of Alana's lower lip that's bloody and raw from being constantly worried between her teeth. She bites down hard.

"Okay, alright..."

Alana closes her eyes momentarily, resting her head against the bars, thinking. "Hey, Will?"

"Mmm?"

"Tell me things."

He lifts heavy, swollen eyes to look at her. "I don't have any stories."

"Tell me anything." He seems at a loss, and after a moment Alana prompts, "What was your best catch?"

It takes a moment, but Will's eyes slowly come alive, gleaming with a faraway nostalgia as he begins to talk about fishing. He goes through several catches and fishing trips and the serenity of those moments. Soon he's describing how he makes the fishing reels, taking her through the process, his voice getting stronger the more he talks.

Alana listens, and asks questions, even forcing a smile periodically. When he runs out of fishing talk, she asks about the dogs, how he found or rescued all of them, making him take her through each story.

She keeps him taking, and he doesn't ask about the time for awhile. At one point, she sneaks a glance at her watch, and thinks to herself, _Two hours, twelve minutes_.

~(W*A)~

At eight thirty they bring a last meal of waffles, bacon, hash browns, sausage and scrambled eggs.

"Favorite food?" Alana asks, trying and failing to smile.

"I just...they told me it'd be at breakfast time." Will stares down at the crowded plates before him. "I don't think I can eat." He looks up at her. "You want any...?"

"No." Alana's felt nauseous for the last half hour. They'll kick her out at nine. "Thanks."

Will shoves the plates out of the way. "You think anyone eats it?"

"Dunno."

Will lifts his eyes and studies Alana. "You'll have to leave soon, right?"

"Yeah." Her answers are getting shorter and shorter out of necessity. She is so close to breaking down, and she's determined not to do it in front of him.

Peter had been replaced several hours ago, so there's no chance of getting back in the cell.

Will takes Alana's hand once again, and reaches his other one to thread through her hair, eyes oddly focused, like he's memorizing the sensation.

~(W*A)~

They don't talk much, the last half hour. They sit, leaning against the bars, hands clasped, as close as physically possible.

Two minutes after nine, Peter and another CO join the officer already on guard duty. Peter approaches. "Doc, I'm really sorry," he says, "But it's time for you to leave."

She'd known it was coming; it's all she's thought about for hours, but still the moment knocks the wind out of her, and for a second Alana stops breathing.

Strangely, Will reacts first, getting up, leaving one hand in hers and pulling her gently to her feet. Peter steps back, giving them the small amount of privacy that's possible.

Alana looks up at Will. "C'mere..." she murmurs. He does, and she brings Will's hand up, gently brushing her lips against his fingers, then lets it go and reaches up to cradle his face. Alana can feel her throat closing, a fist of tears choking her. A rogue sob slips out, and she says thickly, in a rush, "_Fuck_ I love you."

Will's face twists, but some light in his eyes turns on for the first time in so long. "I..." His voice catches. "I, um..." He's trembling. "I..." The tears are threatening again.

"It's okay," she tells him, her chest jerking spasmodically with the effort to keep from crying.

"If I say it, I'm gonna lose it," he chokes out between gritted teeth.

"It's okay," she repeats, her fingers brushing away a tear rolling down his cheek. "I know."

"Dr. Bloom, it's time," one of the other CO's calls.

"_Shit_." It's all falling apart, and now she's crying. Alana meets Will's eyes; he doesn't look away. "I know, okay?" He nods.

Alana gently nudges him forward, and moves as close as she can get. Through the small gap in the bars, careful not to move too much, she encases his lips softly in hers. They both taste like tears.

She makes herself pull away while she still has the will power to move. "You look at me, okay?" she tells him fiercely. "I'll sit in the front, so you just look right at me, the whole time, alright?"

"Okay."

"_Dr. Bloom_."

It is the hardest thing she's ever had to do, but Alana says quietly, "Bye, Will," and then turns to go.

But his hand catches hers, tugging her back. His jaw is set tightly, eyes wide and determined. "Last words, remember?" He inhales sharply. "I love you. So much, Alana."

Peter has to physically lead her away from the cell.

~(W*A)~

She doesn't go straight to the room where she'll witness the execution, instead walking outside the prison walls, where she immediately falls to her knees, doubled over with sobs, fists slamming against the ground.

Alana gives herself two minutes for the breakdown, but no more. When it's over, she pulls herself together, stands up, and heads to the execution chamber.

She has to make sure to get a good seat so Will can see her.

But Alana's the first one in the witness room, so she manages to sit on the front row, aligned with the head of the gurney she can see through the glass.

Beverly shows up and sits beside her. Alana turns to look at her, and Bev opens her mouth, then closes it again, unable to think of any question that isn't self evident.

Will's lawyer comes, with two paralegals to round out the required number of defense witnesses. Jack Crawford shows up and sits behind Alana and Bev. Hannibal doesn't come; Will was explicit about that. There aren't separate witness rooms at this particular prison, so Alana also notices the prosecutor, and several members of the victims families whom she recognizes from the trial. They fill in the back rows.

For the last twenty minutes, Alana stares at her watch and counts down in her head.

Alana hasn't said a word since she left Will. Not to Jack, or even Beverly. She just sits there, still as a stone, trying to picture what's about to happen over and over. She stares at the room in front of her, the gurney and the straps, and imagines Will lying there. Imagines him dyingthere.

She is trying to make it feel real. But it doesn't.

And then, all at once, it does.

They bring Will in. He's walking on his own, two guards flanking him but not touching. There are chains around his ankles. He stumbles slightly when his eyes fall on the gurney, face going white as a sheet, but then he turns his head to look through the glass. His eyes land on Alana, and stay on her as he walks the rest of the way. The guards guide him onto the table.

"I can't breathe," Alana murmurs without meaning to, suddenly dizzy and unfocused. There's a rushing in her ears.

"It'll be okay." Beverly's hand closes around Alana's forearm, her voice far away. Alana pulls clumsily out of her grip, and before she knows it, she's on her feet, words spilling out in a trembling, high pitched mess that sounds nothing like her, "No, this isn't right we have to do something, someone has to _do_ something..."

Beverly's saying her name, but it's Jack who stands up behind her and drops a gentle, firm hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, his expression weary and somber. "There's nothing we can do anymore," he tells her gently, apology threaded through the tone.

"But-"

"Alana?" It's Will's voice somehow; coming through the speaker that allows them to hear into the room.

She turns slowly to look at him; he's strapped onto the table, EKG connected, an IV being pushed into his arm. His head is turned to the side, eyes on her, terrified and pleading. She remembers he needs her, and lowers herself into the seat, eyes firmly on his.

They pull the microphone close to Will, allowing him a last statement. He jerks his head, refusing it, keeping his eyes on Alana.

It is maybe the longest she can remember him holding eye contact without looking away.

The intravenous lines that will administer the killing dosage wines through the wall, into a room they can't see. Alana's so focused on Will that she doesn't notice when the liquid begins flowing through them, into his arms. But once it hits, he loses consciousness fast, his eyelids fluttering and then shutting. A scream rises from her chest, but it doesn't get out, just sits there, cutting her throat into ribbons.

Alana doesn't blink for the minute and a half it takes before the medical examiner declares Will Graham dead.

She doesn't make a sound. Grief bursts open inside of her, and it's too big, greater than the sum of her parts, and for several long, horrifying moments it overwhelms Alana completely.

There comes a second when, incapable of rational thought, Alana's genuinely convinced she's the one who's dying, that there's been some sort of mistake and the poison has been injected into her veins instead, because surely nothing but death could hurt this much.

Alana doesn't speak. She walks away from Beverly, and from Jack, when the witnesses file out.

She gets ten feet outside the prison, the sunlight obscenely bright, before she loses it. Her body stops working, and she sags limply against the side of the building, crying big, gulping sobs that make her feel like her body's breaking.

Then suddenly a hand slams into her cheek.

The shock, more than the pain, halts her crying and makes her look up, where she finds a red eyed woman staring at her, hand raised. Alana recognizes her as Marisa Shore's mother, but she only has time to identify her before the woman slaps her again.

"You're _crying_ for that monster?" The woman asks shrilly. There's a fear warring with the rage in her eyes: the kind of fear that comes from finding out the thing you've been counting on didn't help the way you thought it would. "He killed my baby girl, do you have any idea what he did to her?! To her body?" She swings at Alana again. "How _dare_ you?"

"Hey!" Beverly's beside her, fire in her eyes. "FBI." She flashes her laminated ID quickly, fast enough that the woman can't see the FORENSICS label. "You might want to move along."

"Hit me again," Alana whispers. Beverly and Mrs. Shore both look at her, taken aback. "Do it, hit me."

Marisa's mother looks momentarily uncertain, and Beverly deliberately steps between her and Alana. "Move along."

The woman shakes her head at both of them, then joins the throng of witnesses shuffling toward the gates.

Beverly looks at Alana, expression helpless. Before she can think of anything to say, Jack approaches them. "Everything okay here?"

Alana glances at the two of them, both exhausted and shaken and disturbed. But there's a difference, for both of them. Over the past two years, they have done what she couldn't. They slowly distanced themselves from Will. They have prepared for the reality of this moment. They made sure it wouldn't rip them to shreds when it happened.

"Let me take you home," Beverly says.

~(W*A)~

"Want me to come in?"

"No." Alana can barely open her eyes. "Thanks."

Beverly looks at her skeptically. "You going to be okay by yourself?"

"Yeah." Alana gets out of the car. "Bye."

Will's dogs crowd her when she walks in, and that's all it takes for her to start crying again. Or maybe she never stopped. It's hard to pick out the transition at the moment.

She sits in the floor in the foyer, feeling sick and panicked and unstable.

Alana's skin is crawling; she could tear it off right now. With spastic urgency, she tugs off her coat, and then her button down, leaving her in only a tank top, and she wraps her right hand around her left wrist.

There are scars there. Some are over fifteen years old, none younger than a decade, so you'd have to be close to pick them out: thin, criss-crossing horizontal lines of slightly paler skin, from just below her palm to halfway down her forearm.

For almost ten years after her mother sliced open her wrists and bled out in the bathroom with her thirteen year old daughter down the hall in her bedroom, Alana had blamed herself for not getting out of bed and stopping it.

And for almost ten years, she had done this to herself.

It hadn't been about the pain, not at first (though she'd quickly discovered that pain could become its own addiction). It was the dare of it, the danger. Alana had craved the power of knowing how close she could come, that with a mere flex of the muscles in her fingers, she could cut deeper, longer. She could sever the line between her own life and death.

Suicide was Alana's mortal enemy, but it was an enemy she kept close. The cutting was a game of chicken, a staring contest, a cold war she always won.

Now, for the first time since college, she is remembering what it felt like, that pulsing need to test herself, to come close. She is craving it, already methodically cataloguing the knives and razors and scissors she has in the house.

Alana squeezes her eyes shut, digging her nails into her skin, trying to anchor herself. She stands abruptly, going to a hall closet where there is a box filled with several dozen cigarette packs. Alana quit smoking when she was twenty three, but in moments of high stress over the years, she will go into a drug store or gas station and buy a pack, carry it around for a few hours, pretend that she'll indulge the craving but eventually talk herself out of it.

Now, she rips open a pack, going to the kitchen for a lighter. She allows herself one long, shaky drag, first in thirteen years, and then presses the butt hard against her arm, just for a few seconds.

It doesn't work. There is a part of her mind still choosing between blades.

She's scaring herself. She feels crazy. Beverly's question floats into her head: _you going to be okay by yourself?_

Alana grabs for her cell phone, goes to the top of the contact list and dials her brother.

"Hello?"

"Aaron?" Her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.

"Al? Are you okay?"

"Um..." She has the tiny phone gripped in both hands. "They killed him, Aaron. They really did it, they killed him, Will's gone, he's dead..." The words fall apart.

"Al? Alana, hey, I need you to breathe me, okay?" Aaron says in alarm. "Do you need me to come?"

"Yes..." She forces the word out, a low, keening note.

"Okay just sit tight and wait for me, alright? I'll be there in ten minutes."

"T-ten minutes?" He lives almost two hours away.

"Bev called a few weeks ago. Told me it was today." He pauses, but she can hear him shuffling around, getting ready. "You never told me, so I didn't know if you wanted me around...but I wanted to be close just in case."

"I didn't...say anything...because I didn't think they'd really do it," she manages.

"My hotel's ten minutes away, Al." She can hear a door slamming. "Will you be okay for ten minutes?"

"Stay on the phone?"

"Okay, I will. I'm right here, okay? I'm on my way."

"Okay..." Winston trots over to her, draping over her lap. Will's voice is in her head, telling her the story of finding the dog wandering the side of the road at night, the way he'd sat patiently in the back of his trunk until Winston approached.

It only makes her hurt more, but it clears her head. The grief feels focused. Alana replays the story, Will's voice and Will's words, and she slowly lifts her left hand and runs her fingers through her dog's fur.

~(W*A)~

_A/N: Thanks a lot for following this one, guys. Sorry for the depressing end...I usually don't like to do that with multi-chapters, but as I mentioned at the beginning, this was more of an interconnected series, and anyway, I can't pretend I don't love dark and angsty. I'd love to hear what you guys think. _


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